My sister and I and our good friend the tune dude, Jeff James, have a tradition of taking a road trip in the summer and going to see a concert. This summer’s musical road trip was to Columbus to see ‘the last man standing’ of the original Pink Floyd lineup, since David Gilmour is basically done with extensive touring, namely Roger Waters and his enormous visual extravaganza. You’ll soon see what I mean. I’ve been to many hundreds of concerts… Read more

Take a good hard look at what I’ve got in my hand. The pictures do not do it adequate justice at all. This little intricately designed conch shell, or welk is so tiny and yet so beautiful, so artful. And you have to ask yourself— what is the point? Obviously welks don’t float around in the sea admiring each other’s looks. And much of the symmetry and beauty of the spiral design has no real or at least little functional… Read more

Let’s start on the front porch, and work our way through this remarkable house. Notice the detailed stone work. Once inside, you have to turn around and look back towards the front door. Most noticeable is the impressive woodwork with the dragons… But then the woodwork is one of the outstanding features of the entire downstairs… Notice as well the hardwood floors… There are stained glass windows and cut glass windows all over the house…. The wallpaper and the curtains… Read more

Sitting on the corner of St. James Court, at its very entrance way, is the Conrad-Caldwell House. Here, according to the website, is its history…. “Surrounded by a beautiful courtyard neighborhood at the center of the largest collection of Victorian Homes in the US, “Conrad’s Castle” featured all the latest innovations of its day, including interior plumbing and electric lighting. Known for its beautiful woodwork and parquet floors, this massive Bedford limestone home, covered with gargoyles, beautiful archways, and elaborate… Read more

While some of these old homes seem reasonably normal in size and design….. And there is even one three story apartment building (the first of its sort in any proper neighborhood in the town) which was built to house various WWI soldiers recuperating from the ravages of war… This is hardly the ‘normal’ house on these streets where nothing succeeds like excess. The nouveau riche of Louisville loved turrets and towers and elaborate stone tracery work. They liked etched glass,… Read more

In 1873, Louisville, trying to improve the visibility and status and commerce of its city held a gigantic Southern Exposition. This continued to happen well into the 1880s, and the piece of land at which the giant exposition building was built (see below) was in due course turned into stately homes of the Victorian sort. We went to see the neighborhoods of St. James Court and Belgravia Ct. in eastern Louisville, and in particular to go and see the Conrad-Caldwell… Read more

Call me a sucker for old southern ways and charm, but the Storybook Inn run by Ms. Elise Buckley is a trip back in southern time. This house is really quite amazing. It has bedrooms named My Fair Lady, Casablanca, Gone with the Wind, and it looks like something out of Gone with the Wind. It is located on Highway 62 on the edge of Versailles, and it’s impressive. Set up as a bed and breakfast, complete with friendly cats… Read more

I’ve spent a lot of time on the coasts of North and South Carolina. Most of the last 65 summers I’ve been down there. But one thing I have never done, until last June, was take the ferry and go visit Bald Head Island. In the 60s, back at the dawn of time, when I was in high school, I was in an environmental group called ECOS. We wanted to prevent the development of various of our pristine barrier islands,… Read more

Somewhere in the 1880s, about 1884 a woodworking factory in Louisville, owned by an immigrant family, the Hillerich’s, turned mainly into a bat factory, home of the Louisville Slugger. The reason for this transformation was because of the local budding baseball team, which in due course was to move and to become the Pittsburgh Pirates. And then there was, just up the road the Cincinnati Redlegs as well. Bud Hillerich, the son of the owner created a bat for Pete… Read more

This is the cathedral of Bede’s burial, and St. Oswald, of St. Cuthbert, of the Lindisfarne Gospels, of Lightfoot, and Westcott, and Moule, and yes Tom Wright too. It’s always a blessing to visit this sanctuary. Here is the tomb of Bede, and two of his famous writings. Bede’s most famous work, The Ecclesiastical History of England, is actually what determined for the West the date when it was assumed Christ was born, the dividing line between B.C. and A.D…. Read more